Spring’s Hottest Colour: Tangerine Tango

Colour forecaster Pantone is pushing the orange crush, raising the hue and cry for tangerine tango, its colour of the year. And like the Red Bull of fashion, the cheery sunset shade promises to infuse us with energy and optimism.

It showed up all over the runways during fashion week. The orange in New York designer Elie Tahari’s shiny tops, jackets, and mottled silk pants, looked freshly squeezed. Italian designers Dolce & Gabbana served it up as a vibrant vegetable print of oversized reddish-orange tomatoes and peppers in ’50s-style fit-and-flair dresses and full skirts. At Paris brand Chloe, the soft and dusky colour bars on pleated drop-waist dresses was less Sunkist and more sorbet.

Pantone calls tangerine tango “sophisticated”, “dramatic” and “seductive”, and while it’s easier to wear than most oranges, careful if you’re extremely fair or your skin is olive toned, says Toronto wardrobe stylist Linda Gaylard. She suggests pairing it with weathered, beach colours such as sand, grey and ivory or, if you’re bold, navy or royal blue. (Just avoid Halloween combo orange and black.) “You can take anything you’d put red with and put it with [this shade] of orange,” Gaylard says. “You just need confidence.”